Pride in place

[Spartacus]

There was mention yesterday, which may have slipped by some, that the Goverment is about to launch a "pride in place" £5 billion investment into city and town centres to boost high streets, parks and public spaces.

I can see two flaws with this.

Firstly it's a sticking plaster over a problem that the government doesn't seem to want to tackle. The decline of town centres is largely down to the impact caused by large players including the Internet giants, (non bricks and morter), who seem not to be paying the appropriate amount of taxes or even bypassing them by sending small value items into the UK. Until the playing field is leveled to give high streets an equal chance, consumers will naturally go for the best price. This would also increase the tax revenue the Chancellor has to play with and keep money in the local economy .

Second issue I see is that when we are all staring down the barrel of a potential £30 billion tax hike in the budget, is this the right time to be announcing even more spending. Feels that maybe waiting till the economy is tracking better would be prudent. 

Of course the argument could be, improving the town centre realm , improves consumer confidence to shop locally, but unless the first point is fixed it could be a case of throwing bad money after good. 

 BBC News - Which areas are due to get share of £5bn funding boost? - BBC News

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1mx8vr2gr1o

 

[Angelina]

when high streets are filled with betting shops, pound shops, empty sites and just run down - as is the case in many places - of course people don't want to go there - either for essentials or to hang out or shop-shop.

a multi-fronted approach is exactly what is needed - upgrade the areas, encourage footfall, encourage new shops etc - BUT that has to be supported by consumers - who need to stop being lazy with amazon and home deliveries and make better choices.

 

 

[Jenijenjen]

It is not laziness that sends me shopping on the Internet, it's also the better choice, better prices, and also the availability of items impossible to obtain either locally or in central London. I try to avoid Amazon for both ethical and quality issues. 

The internet has enabled many small businesses to trade which would not have been possible before, surely that's a good thing. 

The genie is well out of the bottle.

[Angelina]

If that better choice, better price and better availability were available locally instead of being delivered - what choice would you make?

Not everyone makes ethical choices yet consumers have all the power.

If you realised that your changing your consumer decisions could directly impact the environment around you, would you make different choices?

[Jenijenjen]

I'm not going to answer a hypothetical question about an imaginary outcome.

[Angelina]

I'll take that as a No then.

It's not as "imaginary" as you think, to understand the impact online shopping has on communities and local environments. That's well known.

[Jenijenjen]

10 minutes ago, Angelina said:

 

It's not as "imaginary" as you think, to understand the impact online shopping has on communities and local environments. That's well known.

This is not what I am referring to as imaginary, more that to reverse this trend shoppers would be prepared to go back to high street shopping

- To pay more

- Endure the irritation, inconvenience and time spent real life shopping

- and to have far, far far less choice. To shop in bricks and mortar shops means the shopkeeper is to a certain extent making preliminary choices for us.

As I said before, the genie is out of the bottle.